What is happening with FCP 6.0.5?

[Aaron D hose]

Blah… animation codec gives me pristine name supers, but shows a slight aliasing in the video (nested DVCPRO HD sequence @ 720p/29.97). Hmmm, in reading your “Final Cut Pro 6 Bugs” article I can see now why I was able to do what I was in FCP 5 but not so easily in FCP 6. Bummer. At home, I tried this:

– 720×480/10-bit/29.97/no fields/high precision render
– Dropped in a DVCPRO HD (23.98/720p) clip which FCP rescaled to 75%
– Laid the name super over it (29.97/animation codec/straight alpha)

No problem here. Beautiful name super. Crisp render on the video as well.

Same trick @ work… aliased graphics. Diagnosis, I may just need a clean slate, brand-new project file. Maybe my project file is buggy ehehe.

“Be the dream, NOT the dreamer!”

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aaron D Hose] “Tried it this morning at work (same technique)… darn thing went back to interlacing the graphics!! “

Well, it’s not magic, meaning there’s no voodoo to it. There are about three or four different places that you can change the interlacing in your scenario and if you are working across multiple renders on multiple machines with multiple projects, you have to make sure it’s right every time.

Jeremy

[Don Greening]

[gary adcock] “Why?

NTSC is an interlaced format with Lower field first- that would be the default unless you modified the original- no matter how the content is created, it will be converted to the default on import. “

I’m assuming that your “why” question is referring to my “it drives me crazy” statement. Answer: because I’m too stupid to remember to change the format attributes from lower first to progressive each and every time I import media files and drop them into a DV NTSC Anamorphic progressive sequence. You’re saying that I can make a modified DV NTSC custom preset that will always default to importing stuff as progressive? If so then that sounds logical.

Motion acts the same way when working in DV NTSC. I have to keep going to the media tab and telling Motion that my video clips are progressive and not interlaced. When finished I export a progressive .mov that, when imported into the FCP project will still default to lower first in the Browser and its subsequent addition to the progressive timeline.

Not all imported media defaults to progressive, however. When I import my Sony EX progressive HD stuff and drop it into a DV NTSC progressive timeline it stays progressive. I can only assume that this has to do with the FCP 6 ability to work with multiple formats in the same sequence. My progressively shot XL2 anamorphic footage always gets flagged as interlaced in the Browser but I understand why this happens because of DV NTSC’s defaulting to interlaced. I wonder if DVX100 progressive does the same thing. Probably.

I guess some media attributes stick better than others. BTW, did I use the word “progressive” enough times?

– Don

[Jeremy Garchow]

Another thing, Aaron.

If you are taking your 720p23.98 timeline and nesting it in a 29.97 NTSC timeline, FCP will not render in the proper pulldown. It will render 2:2:2:4 and not 3:2 pulldown.

I would advise you to nest your 23.98 HD timeline, in a 23.98 SD timeline. Render your graphics out of AE at 23.98 and then have your capture card or FCP add proper 3:2 pulldown on output to get up up to 29.97 with proper 3:2 pulldown across the entire program. This will also keep you in a more simple and progressive workflow where interlacing will be the very last part of the output process and will be handled in hardware by your capture card.

Jeremy

[Sandy Chase]

Wow, this just solved a HUGE mystery on our end here. I was generating 720X486 progressive animations (animation CODEC) from Motion and FCP kept interpreting them as lower field dominant no matter what we did. It was driving us CRAZY!! Setting the fields dominance to none from the FCP BROWSER fixed it.

Thank you.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Sandy Chase] “Wow, this just solved a HUGE mystery on our end here.”

Awesome. Glad you found your way to the Search bubble! 😀

Jeremy